For the purpose of maintaining and preserving the big game herds within them, the State has established the Shoshone and Hoodoo State Game Preserves, where no hunting is permitted.
The Cody-Yellowstone Road passes through the Shoshone Preserve. During the summer months most of the animals, particularly deer, elk, and mountain sheep, are in the high country back from the road. Moose, however, are frequently seen along the river and occasionally deer and bear. During winter and spring, however, hundreds of deer and elk can be seen quietly feeding along the road. Mountain sheep are also frequently seen during these seasons.
Keep your camera loaded when passing through the forest. A shot of a big bull moose or a graceful deer makes just as good a trophy as a head or a hide, and the camera season is always open. It requires much more skill to stalk and shoot game with a camera than with a gun.
If you go hunting be a genuine sportsman by obeying the State laws, by putting out your smokes and campfires, and by leaving a clean camp.
Fur Bearers.—In the old days of the fur brigade and trading posts the area now in the forest furnished its quota of furs, and it still produces some of the finest. The most valuable and most eagerly sought fur bearer is the marten. In addition, there are badger, muskrat, ermine, mink, red fox, coyote, and bobcat. There are also three other species which are protected, beaver, otter, and wolverine, which is extremely rare.
On the Shoshone the trappers are assigned to individual trapping allotments. Each man regards the allotment as his, because it is reissued to him year after year as long as he wishes to hold it and obeys the State and Federal laws. This system promotes harvesting the fur crop rather than mining it. In other words, the trapper realizes that he cannot take all of the animals but must leave a sufficient number to restock the allotment for future trapping. Each trapper is required to report to the proper officer all game law violations occurring within his territory.
Fishing.—Practically all suitable waters of the forest are stocked with fish. Species include the black spotted, rainbow, Eastern brook, and mackinaw trout, Montana grayling, and whitefish.
In recognition of the importance of keeping lakes and streams stocked the State Game and Fish Commission operates a fish hatchery near Cody, and practically all of its output is used in replenishing the waters of the forest. Additional assistance is rendered by the U. S. Bureau of Fisheries by furnishing planting stock from its Yellowstone Park, Crawford, Nebr., and Bozeman, Mont., hatcheries. Forest officers cooperate with representatives of these agencies in planting fish in forest waters. The forest maintains a specially built tank truck for transportation of fish into the mountain waters. Four rearing ponds have been constructed by the Forest Service in which fry and fingerling trout are kept until they are from 4 to 7 inches in length before being released. The percentage of survival of fish reared in such ponds is many times greater than when they are released in turbulent mountain streams before they are large enough to care for themselves.
FIRE—ENEMY OF THE FOREST
Each forest fire that burns means a loss of forest resources. Timber, forage, wildlife are destroyed; soil erosion follows; everybody loses. Fires are always a menace in the summertime and more than half of them occur because some careless smoker or camper does not take care of his match, cigarette, pipe, or campfire. From 1909 to the close of 1939, 229 fires, which burned over 25,649 acres, have occurred. In recent years the Shoshone National Forest has suffered heavy losses from two large fires and an increasing number of smaller ones. The Crandall fire in 1935 burned over 12,600 acres. This tremendous and staggering loss was the result of the carelessness of ONE MAN. In 1937, the tragic Blackwater fire occurred. Although only 1,254 acres of forest were destroyed, the fire resulted in one of the worst disasters in the history of the Forest Service fire fighting. Fifteen men, whose memory has been perpetuated in the Firefighters Memorial paid the supreme sacrifice.